Monday, October 26, 2015

On Our way home from Utah Mark and I decided to take a detour to Lincoln. My parents lived there for 10 years and we hadn't been back since they sold the house. They built a log home on the Continental divide and we loved going there every summer when the kids were little. Neal was too young to remember, but the other kids remember it well.

I hope one our grandkids will remember our home in Leavitt.

The views were so pretty as we neared the small the town.

This is the road into Lincoln.

While my parents were building their home, this was their home away from home.

Lincoln is an old mining town with lots of history!

The Glory Hole, which is located just a ways down the road from their house. Mark and I were surprised at the level of water here. Maybe it was the time of year.

This Trading Post is the home of Hi-Country beef jerky, the best jerky this side of the Mississippi!

I make Mark take selfies. What can I say?

We loved our short time in Lincoln.

About 1 week or two later Lou Lou and I made a sweet and last minute trip to see daddy!

On our way, though, we had to stop and see our babies.

I'm on the left holding Thea and Lou Lou is on the right holding Sloane.

Below is us holding Jack!

This picture may seem odd, but there is a reason I am posting this. This picture shows strength and I mean strength. Lou Lou loves See's Candy. I do too, but she really loves it.

I was on a healthy eating challenge during our trip and only had 1 free day to use. I used it at See's Candy, but what this picture doesn't say is that Lou Lou went there 2 times! This is me on our 2nd visit, being super strong and not having any candy. At all! Here is Lou Lou eating more sugar at a FHE in St. George. Didn't eat sugar that night either.

We always stop in Santaquin to visit mommy. In the past we get a scone or two at the Family Tree Restaurant, but decided that they are just too big.

Look at our daddy! He is the bestest daddy ever!

Daddy was born in Santaquin. This house is still standing and is the original home of Perry Orin Hatch, his grandpa. He remembers being there as a little boy.

This is the elementary school in Santaquin that he attended. It is now a museum and in it is a sewing box that belonged to Lucy Holbrook Hatch, I believe. The wife of Perry Orin.

Kelly, Brad's wife, made a picture book of the newest great grandkids. He isn't able to see them as often as he would like so this book was perfect!

Lou Lou and I found a couple of old photo albums and we enjoyed listening to daddy explain some of the photos to us. It is a treasure!

This is Aunt Pat. She is daddys only sibling. She lives in Bozeman, MT and we took a detour to visit with her on our way home. We introduced her to Family Search and the portrait pedigree program to show her all the family pictures of her extended family, generations back.

As we were showing her the pictures, she brought out her Book of Remembrance and it is a gold mine! She enjoyed reminiscing and we loved hearing the stories. Lou Lou is going to visit her again in February and try to get lots of information to enter in portrait pedigree. This generation of our family won't be here forever and then the stories are lost.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

We all cannot wait until she can tell us all what she is thinking. She talks gibberish all the time. I'm sure she knows exactly what she is saying, although we have no idea!

We stayed with Laurel while we were in Utah and she lives in a super sweet spot, right behind the Capitol building. Mark and I took a walk everyday and everyday was different. There are so many trail options and on our last day we discovered a trail on the opposite side of Memory Grove that ended up two blocks from LDS Hospital where Camryn and Sloane were born.

One of our walks was hiking up to Ensign Peak.

And man oh man, do we love our Jack! He is all smiles all of the time.

He is the most easy going, good natured little fellow and always dressed to the "t".

These two seem to always have something to discuss.

Clark had plans that he couldn't change so we missed him for part of our time in Utah.

Sisters, Sisters...

Here is Jack standing up all by himself just short of nine months and holding onto a frisbee at the same time.

We were not together for Laurel's birthday in August so we celebrated it this trip.

My girls love their daddy and I love that!

We were waiting for Michelle to check out of the hospital so we took a walk to Hatch's Chocolate

1 block from the hospital.

Having some fun together with the Hatch's in the back ground

Just hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Bledsoes.

Laurel discovered, by accident, a little room off of the Family History room at the Joseph Smith Building that was so so fun. It's an interactive center that is powered by Family Search. You log into your account on their iPads and go around to the areas. When you plug in your iPad, all the information you see on the board is all about you! The above pictures are some of the screens you see.

We decided to take a selfie with Joseph Smith on our way out.

Laurel rocks in classy pictures!

Clark popped over for a few minutes after work one day. I know these pictures don't mean much to you, but these guys were throwing a little ball on the roof and trying to have it roll down into a little basketball hoop. It was impossible until Mark did it! The picture on the right are their reactions.

We finally got a family picture!

Isn't Neal just a funny guy. I guess he thought I was funny too.

Mark bought some toys for Camryn and boy did they have fun playing together.

Jordan took Camryn out on a little daddy-daughter date and came home to eat their burger and fries.